EFF Announces New Privacy Tool

Logfinder Helps Eliminate Unwanted Logging of Personal Data

San Francisco, CA - EFF this week released logfinder, a
software tool to help people reduce the unnecessary
collection of personal information about computer users.
Often computer network servers automatically log
information about who has visited a website and when, or
who has sent and received email. Such data tells a lot
about a user's browsing and email habits and could be
used in privacy-invasive ways. Moreover, log data must
be turned over to government entities with court orders
and can be subpoenaed by opposing sides in court cases.

By finding unwanted log files, logfinder informs system
administrators when their servers are collecting personal
data and gives them the opportunity to turn logging off
if it isn't gathering information necessary for
administering the system.

Logfinder was conceived by security consultant Ben Laurie
and written by EFF Staff Technologist Seth Schoen. It's
intended to complement EFF's recent white paper, "Best
Practices for Online Service Providers," in which the
organization argues that administrators should remove
as many logs as possible and delete all personally
identifying data from them.

"People who choose to follow our recommendations in the
white paper might not know what kinds of logs they have,"
said Schoen. "Logfinder is an example of one way a
system administrator could become aware of the presence
of logs, as well as discover sensitive information
being collected in known logs."

EFF Urges Congress to Vote "No" on Real ID Bill

Standardizing driver's licenses has long been recognized
as a bureaucratic back-door to a national ID system - the
hallmark of a totalitarian state. With its required
linking of databases and ability of the Secretary
of Homeland Security to establish a single format for
licenses, the "Real ID Bill" (HR 418) takes us well along
that road. Yet it fails even to pay lip service to civil
liberties and privacy concerns.

This week, EFF joined a diverse left-right coalition of
privacy and civil liberties organizations including the
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Electonic
Privacy Information Center (EPIC), the Privacy Rights
Clearinghouse, and the Gun Owners of America (GOA) in
sending a letter urging Congress to reject the bill.

"This bill would create a single nationwide database of
every driver by forcing all states to link their DMV
records, while repealing existing requirements for
privacy-respecting procedures," said Lee Tien, EFF's
senior privacy attorney. "It's a toxic concentration of
data."

Mandatory Student IDs Contain RFIDs

Parents and Civil Liberties Groups Urge School District to
Terminate Use of Tracking Devices

San Francisco - Parents in a northern California public
school district and civil liberties groups are urging a
school district to terminate the mandatory use of Radio
Frequency Identification tags (RFIDs) by students.

Several civil liberties groups, including the ACLU of
Northern California (ACLU-NC), Electronic Frontier
Foundation (EFF), and the Electronic Privacy Information
Center (EPIC), sent a letter this week expressing
alarm at the Brittan School District's use of mandatory
ID badges that include an RFID device that tracks the
students' movements. The device transmits private
information to a computer on campus whenever a student
passes under one of the scanners. The ID badges also
include the student's name, photo, grade, school name,
class year, and the four-digit school ID number.
Students are required to prominently display the badges
by wearing them around the neck at all times.

"Forcing my child to be tracked with a RFID device -
without our consent or knowledge - is a complete invasion
of our privacy," said Michael and Dawn Cantrall. "Our
7th grader came home wearing the ID badge prominently
displayed around her neck - if a predator wanted to
target my child, the mandatory school ID card has just
made that task easier." The Cantralls filed a formal
complaint against the Brittan Elementary School Board
in Sutter, California on January 30th after meeting
with several school officials.

"The monitoring of children with RFID tags is comparable
to the tracking of cattle, shipment pallets, or very
dangerous criminals in high-security prisons. Compelling
children to be constantly tracked with RFID-trackable
identity badges breaches their right to privacy and
dignity as human beings," said Cedric Laurant, Policy
Counsel with EPIC.

"It is dehumanizing to force these children to wear RFIDs,
and their parents are rightfully outraged," said EFF
Senior Staff Attorney Lee Tien. "We are doing everything
we can to support the parents in this fight to protect
student privacy."

BayFF Event: EFF Celebrates Innovation, Feb. 22

Check Out the Latest Gadgets and Hang Out with EFF at our
February BayFF!

WHEN:
Tuesday, February 22nd, 2005
7:00 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.

WHAT:
"Inventive Gizmos - A Celebration of Innovation"

Innovation. We love it.

This upcoming BayFF is a celebration of all the
technological wonders we've been able to enjoy thanks
to the legal shield provided by the 1984 Sony Betamax
ruling. Come check out cool new gizmos from local
tech companies Elgato, Slim Devices, and Sling
Media. EFF attorneys and tech gurus will talk about
how you can help protect the pro-innovation
environment that allows gadgets like these to
flourish.

This event is free and open to the general public.
You must be 21+. Refreshments will be served.

RSVP at (415) 436-9333, x129 or email bayff-rsvp@eff.org

111 Minna Gallery is accessible via BART. Get off at
the Montgomery station and use the exit marked 2nd
and Market. Walk south on 2nd Street for a block
and a half, and take a right down the Minna Street
Alley. 111 Minna Street is located between Mission
and Howard streets.

EFF Seeks Summer Interns

EFF invites outstanding law students to apply for summer
internship positions at our high-energy office in San
Francisco, where you can work with EFF's legal team to
litigate cutting-edge issues surrounding new technologies.

Interns assist in all aspects of litigation, including
legal research, factual investigation, and drafting of
memoranda and briefs, while also helping with policy
research, client counseling, and the development of public
education materials.

Summer interships are unpaid and last for 10-12 weeks.
Applications are due by February 25, 2005.

RIAA Sues Dead People
Lawyers representing several record companies filed suit
against an 83 year-old woman, claiming that she made more
than 700 songs available on the Internet. The rub: she
passed away in December and reportedly hated computers:http://www.eff.org/cgi/tiny?urlID=382
(Boston Globe)

Yin Yang Alert: Diebold Launches Voting Machine with
Printer
The company that wanted to charge "out the yin yang" for
voting machines with printers has finally produced a
prototype of what you can get at that price:http://www.eff.org/cgi/tiny?urlID=384
(AP)

Fox Censors Super Bowl Ad About Censorship
The racy commercial for GoDaddy.com - an Internet domain
name registrar - featured a faux hearing on broadcast
censorship, complete with (implied) wardrobe malfunction.
It's still widely available on the still-uncensored
Internet:http://www.eff.org/cgi/tiny?urlID=392
(AP)

Patents Leave Japanese Writers at Loss for Words
A Tokyo court has taken word-processing software Ichitaro
- the only serious competitor to Microsoft Word - off
the market because of a dispute over software patents:http://www.eff.org/cgi/tiny?urlID=385
(Computerworld)

Another View on Grokster
Public Knowledge's fearless leader Gigi Sohn with a
thoughtful op-ed on the importance of Grokster, the
return of Induce, and the need for copyright balance:http://www.eff.org/cgi/tiny?urlID=386
(CNET)

Ireland May Toss 50 Million Euros of E-voting Machines
Last year's security dust-up - and the public's vote of
no-confidence - may mean the scrap heap for the country's
planned switch to e-voting:http://www.eff.org/cgi/tiny?urlID=387
(The Register)

German National Library Gets DRM Exemption
The German Federation of the Phonographic Industry has
granted the German National Library a license to circumvent
protection measures in order to facilitate archiving.
It's nice of the federation to grant the license, but it's
sad that librarians have to ask permission to do their
jobs:http://www.eff.org/cgi/tiny?urlID=388
(German National Library, RTF)

Weirdest Defamation Case Ever
In a bizarre show of legal straw-grabbing, a business man
has sued CNN for failing to police the postings of
"Wolfblitzzer0" on a non-CNN site. The man claims that
Wolfblitzzer0's postings are defamatory, and that CNN's
failure to assert trademark claims against him/her
has caused harm. We assume, by the way, that the poster
is not the cuddly anchor of CNN fame:http://www.eff.org/cgi/tiny?urlID=389
(Law.com)

The Search Engine That Knew Too Much
Did you know that Google tracks every search and the IP
address from which it was made? The company may not be
evil, but privacy advocates worry that the data could be
abused by virtue-challenged government agencies:http://www.fwweekly.com/issues/2005-02-02/feature.asp

Microsoft & Macrovision Launch Joint Copy Protection
The "M&Ms of DRM?" Okay, that was bad, but this news is
worse. The two companies intend to saddle analog
recordings with even more copy protection cruft:http://news.com.com/2100-1030_3-5557984.html

Kids Down on Free Speech
According to this scary study, over a third of US students
think the government should pre-approve news stories:http://www.eff.org/cgi/tiny?urlID=390
(USA Today)

New Group Launches to Create Standards for E-voting
The Voting Systems Performance Rating (VSPR) is designed
to be a publicly drafted, publicly available alternative
to today's flawed voting machine standards:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6885237/site/newsweek/

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